


Seaworthy

by Senket



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pirate, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 07:03:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5657116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senket/pseuds/Senket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the request: "AU where Jim is a pirate and Leo is a prince who gets kidnapped by Jim and his crew. (Double points if you add in Jim giving Leo his nickname)"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seaworthy

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted at http://mcficlets.tumblr.com/post/85774134889/

“Damnit kid stop moving.”

“For a man with such nice clothing,” James laughed raucously, hiding his flinch as a soft finger pressed into the puffy, red-purple skin under his rapidly-swelling eye, “you sure have a dirty mouth.” The brash blond leered, much to the dark-haired stranger’s annoyance. The man brushed his fringe out of his eyes and leaned back, letting moonlight fall across Jim’s dirty face from the half-curtained window. He snorted, rubbed his thumb against a streak of dried blood on Jim’s cheekbone. Jim made an undignified sound close to a squeak- a bump in the road shook the carriage hard. Jim, already dizzy, knocked his head against the wooden paneling with a dull, painful-sounding thud.

The dark-haired stranger hissed under his breath and immediately checked for bleeding with a firm press of fingers. “You have soft fingers for a physician,” Jim remarked quietly, entranced by the man’s clean, musky smell. He was certain he was much less fun to be near, he probably smelled like the gutter the man had found him in.

“I’m not a physician by name or practice,” the man rumbled in return. He had a low-pitched voice, remarkably soothing. Well-bred from the accent, which only made his earlier slip more entertaining.

“But you know how,” Jim pressed on, curious. (Always curious.)

“I had to do  _something_ with all my spare time,” the stranger grumbled, seemingly satisfied with the lack of dark fluid against his fingers.

"I usually drink for that,” Jim laughed, his electric-blue eyes twinkling in the low light.

The man snorted, pushing his thick hair back again. “Where do you think I was headed in this outfit, kid?” Jim couldn’t quite divine the meaning of that. His clothes were unremarkable by tailoring or shape, but they were still of distinguishably fine material. Did the man think he could blend in like that? Ah well, let him dream. “By the by,” the brunet tacked on, tilting his head slightly, “do I recognize your face?” Jim, thinking of the sketches of his countenance by the docks, merely smiled.

* * *

“Bones.”

“Excuse me?” the man groused, eyeing the younger blond from where he had stretched out on a red velvet settee. Grinning widely, bright-eyed, Leonard’s visitor came closer. He crouched by the end of the seat, propping his arms and chin up near Leonard’s feet and beamed at him with a sort of calm radiance.

“Bones,” Jim repeated, laughter light in his voice, bright blue eyes creased. It might have effected him differently if he wasn’t overcome with roiling nausea. It was too heady to be explained by a hangover- or at least nothing like any hangover he’d ever felt. Whimpering pitifully, Leonard rolled onto his stomach, arms trapped under him, and squeezed his eyes shut. The settee seemed to lurch beneath him and he groaned sharply, desperate to keep his lunch in. Not that he’d _had_ lunch. What time was it? ”As in sawbones, obviously- since you don’t seem to want  _physician_.”

Leonard struggled for a moment, pushing himself to sitting. It seemed that he had been  _unburdened_ at some point, and was now in only his woolen breeches and his thin undershirt. He remarked with great confusion the state of the room around him. It was tight, small, heavy with the smell of the sea- and the sound of it, too. His blond companion-  _James, was it?-_ was barefoot, clothed in little more than Leonard himself. The room seemed to lurch again and he felt himself turn pale.

James’s expression fell slightly. The younger man looked apologetic, licking the crack in his bottom lip. “Ah- seasick.” He bit at a jagged thumbnail, looking contrite. His expression cleared quickly as he stood again, clapping a hand down on Leonard’s shoulder. “Well, don’t you worry, bones. You’ll get your legs in no time! I’ll go get you breakfast!” He spun on the spot, slipping out the small wooden door with cheer obvious in his gait. “I’ve always wanted a physician!”

* * *

 

He shouldn’t like it here, with them. James- Jim- _‘Call me captain_ ,’ he said once, winking, but only laughed when Leonard,  _Bones now,_ actually used it- had stolen him away in the darkness, gotten him too drunk to see and dragged him home. He  _should_ hate it. But how could he? He’d gotten his sea legs, just like Jim had promised. The first mate was a ridiculous man from a far-off place, pale skin and dark eyes, all stiff professionalism. The man who often took the wheel, despite Jim’s position, had been born in the Americas but had the coloring of a man from the Far East, and there was no man more of a natural swashbuckler on the seas. The Navigator was a crazed young Russian, drinking harder than anyone- even drinking Scotty, a sort of carpenter that kept Enterprise sea-worthy, under the table. And there were  _women_ on this ship, too, a Carol Marcus that took care of their arms and a dark-skinned beauty, Nyota Uhura, the goddess of diplomacy- the reason they always had rations and a sound port, no matter what language needed speaking.

They were family more than he could understand, having brought up by nannies and tutors, dragged in the light only for official functions. They were home. And here, he had a  _reason_ \- he was useful. He’d never wanted anything more than to take care of his people, and here he could. He’d been on the seas less than seven weeks, but he had no wish to be elsewhere. Especially not when, in the darkness of late night, Uhura’s melodic voice drifting in through the open porthole, the salty breeze scenting the air, Jim Kirk slipped in with a bottle of rum and a wicked gleam in his eye to  _settle for sleep, Bones_.

After all, the captain had so  _kindly_ given Leonard equal share of his cabin.  _For a man of gentility_ , he’d added, winking. His smile had been saucy. Leonard had lost count of how many times he’d woken with the young man’s cheek pressed against his bare stomach, snoring away. He could, however, count the amount of times such an occurance had bothered him. To be specific, ‘none.’

* * *

 

Captain Jim Kirk was an enormously social person, as were most of his crew. Most of the time they touched shore found the Enterprise empty except for the physician and the first mate. They left each other mostly alone when Jim wasn’t about causing trouble, and to be honest Leonard enjoyed the quiet to read. He didn’t feel comfortable going to shore, anyway. What if someone recognized him?

Sighing, he settled on the red settee, bare feet kicked up and a slightly water-damaged volume in hand. After a moment of squirming, he sank comfortably into the cushioned seat, turning the page. 

He was so enraptured by the book that he didn’t hear the door open, nor the unusually soft footsteps tred closer. A cool touch jerked him out of his haze and he nearly leaped, scrambling to sit up properly, his heart beating twice its usual speed. “Jesus Fucking Christ Almighty, Jim,” Bones spat out, pressing a firm hand against his chest and trying to regain his breath. “You seriously st-” the words died in his throat at the look in his friend’s eyes. “ _Jim_? What’s wrong?”

The blond stood before him in dead silence. His mouth was half-open. He swallowed reflexively, trying to find words. His blue eyes were wild, sharp with pain. Was that fear? Bones had patched the pirate up many a time but he’d never seen him with such a face. Such naked sorrow had only appeared once, during his brief foray into trying to discover what had happened in the blond’s past to drive him to sea, about his father.

The book forgotten, Leonard pulled the captain to sit beside him, running his fingers through blond hair in a way he had discovered the boy found inestimably soothing. “Jim talk to me.”

Jim’s mouth worked uselessly for several moments before he swallowed, a flash of anger briefly crossing his fingers. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What?”

“Uhura ran into some privateers. Fascinating conversation, she said. Gave me this.” The captain brandished a paper at Leonard. It was crinkled heavily in his fist but the ship’s physician could still make out the important words-  _Prince Leonard McCoy, Capture, Reward-_

 _“_ Jim-“

“ _Why didn’t you say anything?”_

“You didn’t care about my past life before-”

“Your past life couldn’t get my crew _killed_ before!” The Captain shouted over him. Shocked, Bones-  _Leonard-_ let his hand drop to his lap. The moment they were no longer in contact, Kirk shot to his feet. He paced the small space relentlessly, grinding knuckles into his temples. He muttered fast, hard things under his breath, here in there slipping into Spanish or Portuguese or French, just snatches of words in Caribbean dialects. He could see Jim making a decision, knew that behavior, and it squeezed at his chest. His heartbeat was erratic. He couldn’t breathe. He could barely hear over the ‘ _no no no no’_  cycling in his brain.

Jim stopped in his tracks, whirling to face him, and Bones froze- waiting for the ax. “Okay- okay. We’ll bring you back. Nobody knows we’re here, and as long as the privateers haven’t found out- then maybe nobody’ll come after us.”

"Jim-”

“It’s that or we hand you over to the privateers here. They want the reward, they’ll protect you-”

“ _Jim_ -“

“We can’t exactly let you find your own way back, jesus-”

“Jim!" 

"What?!”

It echoed between them, too loud. Flinching, Leonard hunched forward. His hands folded together over his forehead, keeping his eyes, his expression, shaded from Jim. Protected. “Please don’t send me back,” he whispered, shame burning his neck red at the vulnerability in his tone.

He could hear the captain inhale sharply but he refused to look up. He couldn’t. When Jim spoke again it was in a measured voice he had adopted from his second in command. Precise, careful, without inflection. “You can’t stay here. It’s a danger to everyone on the crew. We’ll be hunted down wherever we go the moment anyone gets wind of what sort of cargo we’re carrying.”

 _Cargo_. Leonard flinched, his fingers gripping tightly, so tightly they were white and bloodless. He fancied that he had swallowed the pain noise that escaped him. His voice was almost gone when he spoke again, shuddering, breath rattling in his chest like a dead, dry thing. “ _Please_.”

The answering silence tightened the vice around his chest. He’d be Prince Leonard again- stripped of the Enterprise, stripped of home, of family. Stripped of  _Bones_. A body with no backbone, no skeleton, no soul. So-sure hands shook as he pressed the heel of his palms into his eyes, trying in vain to stop the stinging wetness.

He felt the hands on his knees and his head jerked up, wildeyed. Jim knelt before him, hands on him, high forehead pressed into pale hands, lashed by wind and water. Hesitantly, Bones lowered a hand to the man’s messy blond hair, running his fingers so carefully through short strands. Jim shifted against the touch, pushing his cool cheek into hands that had gone rough and calloused on the sea.

“I can’t, Bones,” he whispered softly, keening. The sound of it twisted him into knots, Jim’s ache palpable. “If it was just me, Bones- god, I’d go for it in a heartbeat and hold on until they pried me cold from you- but I can’t ask my whole crew to stand on the line for what I want.”

There was silence. Leonard had shifted gears entirely. He stared down at James Kirk with new eyes, tracing the edge of his cheekbone and the shell of his ear, finding the soft skin of his throat, gentle fingers tracking across the boy’s lips. Curious, confused by the change, Jim lifted his head to peer up at Bones with bright blue eyes. The physician breathed in sharply, flattening his palm against Jim’s cheek, long fingers cradling the back of his neck. “Surely you’re not surprised,” Jim asked, the first hint of a smile quirking the edge of his full mouth, “no one’s ever accused me of subtlety.”

“What can I say,” Bones muttered, leaning closer, breathing in when their noses brushed, “I should’ve been accused of being blind.”

* * *

 

Though it was certainly true that they’d had a lot of practice fitting on Jim’s settee tangled together, they quickly discovered that such a task was far easier for drunken sleeping than (energetic, frenetic and frequent) …reassurances. (“I believe the word you are searching for is ‘sodomy’” Spock remarked later, much to Jim’s delight and Bones’s embarrassed ire.) The pair lazed on the floor, Jim mouthing sleepily at the bruised column of Bones’s throat as the other man stroked a broad hand up and down the captain’s spine.

“I’ll write my mother a letter,” he remarked, tilting his head to the side as he observed the forming cracks in their ceiling.

Jim snorted. He propped himself up with an elbow, raising an eyebrow as he stared down at Bones. “That’ll never work.”

“Mm.” Shifting his gaze to the man’s bright eyes, Leonard squeezed the man’s waist. “Maybe not. But maybe it will. They don’t _really_ need me. The throne’ll be my brother’s anyway. He already has a baby boy and everything.”

Jim barked out a laugh. Grinning, Bones leaned up to catch his smile.


End file.
